Boycott Eurovision Song Contest 2019 - Guerilla Projection On BBC

inminds30 November 2018

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

On 30th November 2018, Inminds human rights group carried out a guerilla projection on BBC Broadcasting House, the global headquarters of the BBC, to ask the BBC to boycott next years Eurovision Song Contest which is scheduled to be held in apartheid Israel. The BBC is part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) which produces the Eurovision Song Contest.

Israel is shamelessly using Eurovision as part of its official 'Brand Israel' strategy, which presents “Israel’s prettier face” to whitewash and distract attention from its war crimes against the Palestinian people. Israel massacred 62 Palestinians in Gaza, including six children just two days after its 2018 Eurovision win. That same evening, Netta Barzilai performed a celebratory concert in Tel Aviv, hosted by the mayor, and said, “We have a reason to be happy.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Barzilai “the best ambassador of Israel,” underlining his far-right government’s Eurovision art-washing agenda.

Palestinians arts and cultural organisations along with the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate have called on European Broadcasting Union (EBU) members, including the BBC, to boycott Eurovision 2019 if its hosted by Israel. The statement asked the EBU "Would the Eurovision have held the contest in apartheid South Africa?".

Nearly 150 Artists, including Eurovision winners, judges and broadcasters have all supported the Palestinian call to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 if held in Israel.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Its unacceptable that something as culturally prestigious as the iconic Eurovision Song Contest, which is meant to bring people together through music, is handed over to an apartheid regime to use to whitewash its bloody crimes against the Palestinian people, to drown out the screams of those being slaughtered in Gaza. The BBC as a leading member of the European Broadcasting Union, organising the Eurovision, is directly culpable in this whitewashing. We are here to ask the BBC to serve its licence payers by taking a moral stand against racism, and pull out of next years Eurovision if its held in Israel."

The projection lasted over an hour during which time many passers by and BBC employees came to congratulate us for voicing their own concerns of how inappropriate it would be for the Eurovision to be hosted by Israel, and shameful for the BBC to support it.

VIDEO: #BoycottEurovision2019 - Guerilla Projection On BBC

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
“In choosing to be a part of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest - as participants or broadcasters -
we all become complicit in a systematic attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu's government to artwash Palestinian suffering.”
- Joff Oddie (Wolf Alice), musician

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
“The Israeli government is trying to deflect attention from Israel's continued occupation and oppression
of Palestinians by 'rebranding Israel' with art and cultural events.
We ask the European public broadcasters to heed the Palestinian call for boycott
and refuse to be part of this effort at whitewashing Israel's crimes.”
- Michal Sapir, musician, writer

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
“The musicians and singers of the choir ZPZ Kombinat have endorsed the call in the conviction that holding
the Eurosong competition in Israel with all the glamour, show, shining choreography and music it brings,
would mean in the very least smokescreening if not overtly endorsing the genocidal and bloodthirsty policies
of the state of Israel which has been systematically violating the fundamental rights of the Palestinian
people for more than five decades with the silent international complicity.”
- ŽPZ Kombinat, choir

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
“When I visited Palestine last year I was utterly appalled by the treatment being meted out to the Palestinian people
by the Israeli state. I visited South Africa during the apartheid era and I believe that Israel’s policies of
deprivation, discrimination and humiliation are as bad, if not worse, than those perpetrated upon black South Africans.
It is frustrating, for those of us who would like to be of some use, to see that it seems impossible to get the ears of
governments, and the lamentable UN, to enact some practical expression of support for the forgotten people of Palestine.
This is why I think we in Ireland need to stand up and be counted and say, ‘We’re not competing in the Eurovision in Israel’.
It’s a small gesture, but it’s what Palestinians themselves are asking of us. It’s the very least we can do to support them.”
- Mike Murphy, broadcaster, eight-time Eurovision commentator

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
“When Nelson Mandela visited Dublin soon after his release from prison in Robben Island, I asked him what role the
international boycott of South Africa played in the ending of apartheid there. Mandela told me that
‘the boycott was one of the most important weapons in the struggle against apartheid.’
As it was then, so it remains today. This is why I fully support this call for an Irish boycott of the
Eurovision 2019 in Israel. We must show the same solidarity to Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid
as we did to black people under South African apartheid.”
- Robert Ballagh, artist, Riverdance set designer

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
"My job has long been to write about news. If I write about the proven and ongoing collusion between the US,
Australia and those Israeli forces occupying Palestine, I do it only in small, independent media.
There is no way to speak or write of this abhorrence in mainstream news without censure.
This is not to make the case for the rights of me or independent Western journalists. It is to make the case for
those with no voice and no rights in Palestine. i.e. if it is difficult for me to speak, it is impossible for them.
BDS is their voice. It’s all they’ve got. Let it be heard. To support Eurovision in Israel, even just to hum along,
is to stifle that voice. You’ve been asked by the voiceless in Palestine to be a loudspeaker. Turn Eurovision down."
- Helen Razer, broadcaster, writer

Guerilla projection on BBC - #BoycottEurovision2019 #ESC2019
"I stand with the people of Palestine. As an artist and musician, I don’t see how Eurovision can achieve its goal
of bringing the world together through music by having its 2019 competition in Israel, while Israel continues to
violently occupy Palestine. In respecting Palestinian’s call for a cultural boycott of Israel, I encourage my peers
to do the same. We all have a part to play. We cannot remain silent or be complicit in the suffering of Palestinian people."
- L-FRESH The LION, musician, Eurovision 2018 national judge

"For most journalists, whether they realize it or not, are groomed to be tribunes of an ideology that regards itself as non-ideological, that presents itself as the natural center, the very fulcrum of modern life. This may very well be the most powerful and dangerous ideology we have ever known because it is open-ended. This is liberalism."